School Administrator

Virtual tutoring is here to stay. New research points to ways to make it better.

Two studies from Stanford University’s National Student Support Accelerator released Wednesday used natural language processing technologies to review transcripts from tens of thousands of hours of virtual tutoring sessions. Their goal: to better understand exactly what happens between tutors and students in these sessions.

One study examines the impact of disruptions as revealed through tutor comments, such as “You can’t see me? I’m not sure why you can’t see me” or “Sorry. Did you say something? It was hard to hear.”

Researchers found that 19% of available time was lost to disruptions, whether from technological issues, distracted students, or background noise. Time lost to disruptions was even greater when tutors were working with more than one student, especially if one of the students entered the session late.

Tags
News

Coaching4Change

Coaching4Change (C4C) recruits, hires, trains, and places College Mentors in K-12 schools to support academic, attendance, and behavioral/social-emotional growth. C4C provides ongoing professional development to College Mentors to build their career-readiness skills and professional networks. Our dual impact is described below:

1. Support high-need K-12 students with academic and social-emotional learning in urban and gateway communities.

Teachers On Demand, INC

Teachers On Demand (TOD) provides high-impact, in-person and virtual tutoring designed to accelerate learning and close achievement gaps for K-12 students. Our program deploys certified teachers and trained tutors who work side-by-side with classroom educators during the school day to deliver individualized and small-group instruction aligned with state standards. Each tutor receives structured onboarding, 40 hours of initial training, and ongoing professional development focused on the Science of Reading, culturally responsive practices, and data-driven instruction.

North Carolina Volunteers in Public Schools

The North Carolina Volunteers in Public Schools is a 501(c)3 organization that recruits volunteer "Reading Buddies" for Brunswick County public schools. Volunteers are assigned to K-3 teachers who provide them with students to tutor, decodable books, and related materials. Volunteers typically work with two volunteers for 30 minutes each. Outside of being a Reading Buddy, volunteers are encouraged to support teachers by helping them with administrative work and occasionally providing duty free lunches.

Joyful Readers

Our tutors are AmeriCorps service members who dedicate a full year to advancing early literacy. They begin with a month of intensive September training that combines AIM Pathways to Proficient Reading coursework, Wilson Language Training Fundations Launch Workshops, and repeated practice of instructional activities to ensure readiness. After training, tutors are placed in small teams at elementary schools, where they provide daily 30-minute tutoring sessions to pairs of students.

K12 Tutoring

K12 Tutoring Program Badge Design

Every learner deserves the confidence and support to succeed. 

At K12 Tutoring, we bring together caring, expert educators and responsible technology to deliver safe, convenient, equitable, and personalized learning experiences. In partnership with schools, teachers, and families, we empower learners to achieve their goals. We also create opportunities for our tutors to thrive through impact, growth, flexibility, and community. 

Kids First Education

Kids First Education delivers high-dosage, research-based tutoring designed to accelerate student achievement, close learning gaps, and align seamlessly with school instruction. Serving districts across the Southeast, our program is built around small-group (1:4) or one-on-one sessions, conducted at least three times per week for 30–60 minutes, and embedded within the school day. This ensures instruction supports core classroom learning rather than functioning as an isolated add-on.

Key Features and Instructional Approach

2025 Eddies Awards: Best Implementation - DC High-Impact Tutoring Leads to Fastest Academic Recovery in the Nation

EmpowerK12 provided the research to prove evidence of success including data on specific schools as case studies to help others learn and garner additional support. Importantly, their data and analysis was used in the Stanford study on attendance. The D.C. Policy Center highlighted early stages of implementation with a system-level landscape of high-impact tutoring and a publication sharing early community learning and experiences. When PAVE realized that many parents weren’t aware of HIT offerings, they helped providers and schools think critically about how to communicate with families to ensure they understand what’s available, how to access it, and have the tools and knowledge to help their children extend learning beyond the classroom and tutoring sessions.

Why tutoring is a logistics problem worth solving

As education researchers, we hear directly from district leaders about the realities they and their teams face every day. Leading a school district means weighing competing priorities and managing resources, while finding space for new ideas that promise to strengthen teaching and learning.

Each of these efforts has value and reflects a commitment to improvement. Yet amid the churn of initiatives, it’s worth remembering the strategies that have been proven to work time and again.

Tutoring is one of those strategies. Far from a passing trend that fades after a year, high-impact tutoring is a unicorn in the oft-changing tides of education reform: it is both a centuries-old, pedagogically sound and educator-approved way to teach children, and it’s an approach proven by hundreds of rigorous studies over decades.

Azura Literacy

Azura Literacy is a free, virtual, high-impact tutoring program for elementary students in which a caring, vetted, trained adult meets with a child through Zoom one-on-one twice a week to tutor them in reading. Students are given pre- and post-assessments to determine needs and measure growth, and tutors use digital children’s libraries and interactive activities to guide students in engaging, individualized reading practice. This helps them improve their reading skills, confidence, and motivation and make gains toward reading proficiently.

Subscribe to School Administrator